I hate rowing my car, man, if it could steer itself that'd even be fine...

performance is one thing, but transportation is another, I don't like manual windows, I don't like manual climate control, I don't like manual transmissions, on a commuter car anyway..., it's not that I can't drive them either, it's just that it's something that could be automated, so why not? maybe it's because I DO spend my whole life in traffic

Ditto, I love my power accesories, and while I want a manual tranny very bad, I can't justify it because I'm always sitting in rush-hour traffic...with about 500 other nutjobs who can't drive worth a *****. At least I can drive WELL, while talking on a phone, when most other New Orleanians can't drive without being on the phone and having full concentration on the road. However, the whole manual vs automatic is way off-topic, so....

100% attention on the road, at all times, is the best way to drive. thats how i drive, and i think anyone that doesnt drive like that shouldnt be on the road. most accidents are caused by driver error.

blaming people in my demographic (young drivers) for accidents isnt the solution.

ive been in a crash caused by the driver (note: i wasnt the driver. the driver was in her 40's, ironically around the same generation that puts **** on my generation) not paying attention.

when ive been driving, ive had to evade a few potential accidents that, if i wasnt paying full attention, i probably wouldnt have seen until it was too late.

Back in the day, by back in the day I mean when I was 17 lol which was about 4 years ago... I had my first ever CarPC setup and it entailed a HUGE Tower PC that sat in the extended cab section of my truck, with a 400Watt Power Inverter hooked up to a 14inch LCD in my dash. Ultimately I cut the entire dash apart sacrificing all climate controls as well as the vents to make the monitor fit. The Sound system involved 2 normal PC speakers hanging from the roof in the back seat. The monitor was not touch screen so I had a full normal keyboard and mouse that sat next to me on the floor. My truck was manual... The glove box opened up a perfect 90 degrees so I also had a laptop mounted there. Needless to say I mastered the art of driving while playing on computers around the age of 17. I was also really dumb then... my projects have some a long way haha. But seriously I have only been pulled over one time in my life due to my CarPC and I have had a computer in every car I have owned since then. (3 other cars) It was around 1AM and I was on my way home I was using Windows Media Player to play my music and I had that nifty screen saver crap popped up and a cop came up behind me and pulled me over. He told me that I was too busy looking at my computer and not at the road. Even though I WAS NOT looking at my monitor at all and NO ONE was on the street. But whatever. I obviously try not to use my computer while Im driving any more because its very dangerous and irresponsible. Its amazing how much I have changed in 4 years, the most I ever do is change a song. If there are intensive tasks like directions in my GPS I have my girlfriend type them in for me, or if Im alone I pull over.

The only automatic I've ever had was 40 years old when I got my hands on it, and it did wheelspins (a 1600 Ford Cortina 1968.) The horror of trying to get back into a manual afterwards was shocking - I was lurching and slipping the clutch all over the place, but it certainly made me realise that I was in control of over a ton of steel that relied on ME to stop it hitting a wall. Power steering, auto boxes, hell, even air conditioning wrap us up in a nice little bubble to try and block out the idea that there's only a few mm-thick skins of metal between us and the road.

I can't stand automatics. I can't stand people who drive whilst talking on phones. I certainly wouldn't tolerate being T-boned by some fool who was tapping away at a touchscreen.

100% attention on the road, at all times, is the best way to drive. thats how i drive, and i think anyone that doesnt drive like that shouldnt be on the road. most accidents are caused by driver error.

blaming people in my demographic (young drivers) for accidents isnt the solution.

Funny you say that because today I was driving around and there was this big lorry who started to reverse onto my road directly into my path!! (T junction) If I would have slammed on my brakes, then approx 7 tonnes of steel would have slammed into my 1.2tonne car! Luckily I was in second gear, so I put my foot down. The turbo spooled up instantly and I was in hyperspeed JUST narrowly avoiding the lorry!

It is not only HOW much attention you pay but knowing how to get out of hairy situations!

Over here in the UK, we have an AWESOME (sarcastic) driving test! We actually have two driving tests. The first part of the test is a multiple choice questionnaire.....think who want's to be a millionaire but more like who want's to drive lol After 30 stupid questions which a 5 year old can answer, we move onto the "hazard perception" area. What this supposedly does is test if we can identify a hazard and see how long it takes us to "react" to a hazard. So far, it sounds quite good this hazard perception doesn't it? Well no, it isnt, because essentially what you do, is watch a clip on a computer screen, when you see a hazard, you click the mouse button! The quicker you "react" the better the score. You watch approx ten or fifteen clips.
First of all, everybody can identify a hazard, its not at all that difficult.......sheep in the middle of the road........ya think i should slow down??
Secondly, its not when you react but how you react, you simply cannot click a mouse when you see a hazard in real life, so why should it be any different in the test?

anyone who takes his full attention from the road whilst driving deserves the accident,if it could be called that. what difference to changing to the next song on the car pc or on a stock HU ?? if you look at it and nothing else then you are "looking " for trouble...a quick glance should be all you need . you should know where the controls are and it should be second nature to be able to do a simple thing like that. but seriously if it is a chore to do a simple thing like change to a different play list or to skip a song or two then you havnt got your setup done properly. i suppose it is a matter of ergonomics. you need to put the controls where you can reach without stretching and the layout needs to be simple . if it takes multiple menus and several touches to do something i think you need to redesign you setup or as people have said pull over !!!!!!!!!
as for mobiles, what chance have we got of stopping people talking on their mobile phones whilst driving when the cops drive past you doing it?